


to lose your heart is not a path for the faint and fainting

by Jinxed_Ink



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Auguste Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Nicaise Lives, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxed_Ink/pseuds/Jinxed_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My fills for the Captive Prince Week prompts.</p>
<p>Day 1: Memory - "The Testimony of the Living"<br/><i>Dead men tell no tales. All men know this. And, knowing this, dying men endeavour to tell as many tales as they can, to make up for the endless silence awaiting them.<br/>It is part of the reason why physicians end up knowing quite so many secrets.</i></p>
<p>Day 2: Scars - "what’s left of kisses? (wounds leave scars)"<br/><i>And, with the sick, morbid pleasure of a man prodding at a scab, Laurent allows himself to wonder what might have been. What would be preferable: a world shrouded by endless grief for the loss of Auguste, or a world where he would have gone on living happily, heedless of what he might have had?<br/>Suddenly, Laurent feels very cold.</i></p>
<p>Day 4: Summer in Ios - "so in the sunlight, so in the shade"<br/><i>In the hottest months of summer, he takes to sitting on top of the white cliffs of Ios. His once pale, unblemished skin peels and burns and tans. He expects he will be covered in freckles come winter, and the thought brings a smile to his face.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Testimony of the Living

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" by Catherynne M. Valente

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 1 - memory  
> Character study on Paschal  
> Rated T for implied child abuse

Dead men tell no tales. All men know this. And, knowing this, dying men endeavour to tell as many tales as they can, to make up for the endless silence awaiting them.

It is part of the reason why physicians end up knowing quite so many secrets.

Paschal lays some of those secrets out in the throne room in Ios. Clinically, like pulling an arrow from a wound, he tells of his brother’s betrayal, of Govart’s treachery, of Nicaise’s deadly cleverness.

Dead men tell no tales. So Paschal spins stories in their stead.

He stops himself from saying more. Memories of days long past pierce their wicked claws through his heart, demanding to be heard, but he presses his lips tight against them. This is neither the time or the place for them. 

This is the testimony of the dead, after all, and Paschal is not dead just yet.

The world does not need to know the exact length of the line of beautiful youths with bloodless faces who have darkened his door through the years, of how he stroked their curls as they cried or gave them sleeping draughts to ease their nightmares. 

It would help no one, if he told that Laurent was the first of them, and that to this day he does not know (he does wonder, for all the good it does) if he was truly the first, or if the Regent simply decided to stop being cautious, when his brother’s body started growing cold in his casket of silver and gold.

He does not describe countless nights spent staring unseeing at the ceiling, berating himself for not doing more, for not sinking a blade in the serpent’s head and ending this once and for all. For not giving him poison, when he came demanding cures. A better man would have, and faced the gallows gladly.

And neither does he tell of a softer time, of being a schoolboy playing pranks on the blacksmith’s daughter, of the bright, mischievous presence of his brother, always two steps ahead of him.

His brother died a murderer and a traitor, and that’s all there is to it. In the eyes of the world, the court, the council, that’s all there ever will be.

What does it matter, then, that his treasonous brother had a name, had a lover, was more than the sum of his faults and of his crimes? What does it matter that he once was a boy who stole apples and climbed trees and daydreamed in their shade?

And on the subject of his own secret shame? 

Of a dying queen lying coughing and cracking on a bed, holding his hand and telling tales (for in that, dying women are much the same as dying men) and begging promises? 

Of the memory that, most of all, haunts him still, of fever-bright eyes and a hoarse voice as she said: “there is a shadow growing over my court, and my husband is too blind to see it. My Auguste is too sweet to believe it, my Laurent still too naive to think it. Promise me you’ll look after them, when I’m gone, promise me you’ll try…”? 

Why, Paschal is silent on that too.


	2. what's left of kisses? (wounds leave scars)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 - scars  
> Damen/Laurent, Auguste lives AU  
> Rated M

Though Laurent has been living in Ios for months now, he has not yet gotten used to the brightness of the sunlight. It stings his eyes and forces him to wakefulness in the earliest hours of the morning, when the rest of the court still slumbers peacefully in their beds. 

It is an annoyance, even if Laurent has worked it to his advantage, getting some pleasure reading in before his duties start for the day, or writing inane, gossip-filled missives to Auguste. His brother seems to enjoy them well enough, for whatever reason.

But, today, on his first morning as a married man, Laurent finds he does not mind waking early. Turning in his husband’s arms, it strikes him that, though they have fought and bled and loved together for the past three years, he has never had the chance to see Damen sleep before. There were always appearances to uphold, an overprotective older brother to appease. 

No more. Now, Laurent has every right to be here, in Damen’s bed. He has, he thinks with some smugness, the only right. 

He runs the pads of his fingers gently over the arch of his brows, the curve of his nose, the bow of his lips. There, he pauses, enjoying the warm rush of Damen’s breath on his thumb. 

Then he continues: the cleft of his chin, the tendons of his neck, his jutting collarbones. He runs his hand over his husband’s chest. 

There, he has a scar.

It is large, but hardly the largest on Damen’s body, and, eight years on, it is fading into a pale stain. But it still gives Laurent pause, still chills him to his marrow. He strokes the tip of his index finger over it, back and forth, back and forth. And he sends a thankful thought his brother’s way for his aim. A little lower, and Auguste would have pierced him through the heart. A little higher, and Damianos might not have abandoned the fight. Might have killed him. 

And, with the sick, morbid pleasure of a man prodding at a scab, Laurent allows himself to wonder what might have been. What would be preferable: a world shrouded by endless grief for the loss of Auguste, or a world where he would have gone on living happily, heedless of what he might have had? 

Suddenly, Laurent feels very cold. 

Damen’s arms tighten around him. “Stop thinking”, he mumbles, not even opening his eyes, and starts stroking his fingers through the curls at Laurent’s nape. 

“I’m not thinking”, Laurent lies, voice steady. Warmth is already starting to spread across his bones, and he allows himself to burrow closer to Damen’s chest, taking the comfort he his offered. He does not need to defend himself against this.

“Mmmh. You are. I can tell.”

“Well, I can hardly stop, can I?” It comes out sounding more waspish than Laurent intended, and he presses a soft kiss on his husband’s scarred shoulder to soothe the sting of his words. 

Damen opens his eyes at that, just the smallest sliver. There is humour to be found in the curves of his lips. “You can. I’m declaring a holiday.”

“An holiday on thinking?”

“Yes. I am the king, after all. My word is law.”

“That has got to be the most moronic thing you have ever said. Although it would bring everyone down at your usual level of intelligence. It would be quite a change, for you not to be at disadvantage at kyroi meetings…”

“Laurent.”

“Yes?”

Damen kisses him.

When they part, Damen’s eyes are fully open, and filled with such aching tenderness that Laurents feels his heart constrict in his chest. 

They stay close, and the seconds stretch silent in the scant space between their bodies. Then. “He might have killed you.” Laurent says. He does not think he has ever admitted it out loud. He is still looking at the scar. 

Warm fingers touch under his chin, tilt his face up so that all he can see is Damen’s beloved face. “He might have,” Damen agrees. His eyes are serious. “He didn’t.”

“Still.”

“Laurent.” There is a touch of exasperation in Damianos’ voice. “There are a thousand way I might have died. I might have been dropped on my head as a babe, and Kastor would have gotten the crown with no trouble at all.”

Laurent has to force himself to swallow the lump in his throat before he speaks, but the opening is too good to pass up. He arches an eyebrow. “Are you sure you weren’t, at that? It would explain quite a few things.” 

Damen ignores him. His fingers on Laurent’s face are very soft. “There is no use in worrying over things that never happened,” His words are whispered in the space between their lips, passed from his mouth to Laurent’s like a kiss. “I’d much rather enjoy you, instead.”

There is wisdom, in his husband’s straightforward honesty. And Laurent allows just a hint of a smirk to tug at the corners of his mouth, stretching in a way that is meant to appear innocent, but presses him flush against Damianos from ankle to hip. “And how,” he asks, “do you mean to enjoy me?”

Damen laughs, again, but there is hunger in it, now, his eyes dark. His grip on Laurent’s sides is strong and firm as he moves into the cradle of his thighs, and Laurent arches against it. He pushes his husband away, just the slightest bit, tilts his head back and puts his mouth out of reach. He makes a game out of it, and pretends like Damen has not already won. 

“Yes?” Damianos asks, in between pressing tender, stubble-rough kisses on the column of Laurent’s neck, on the soft, vulnerable spot under his chin.

“Yes,” Laurent answers, helplessly, and allows himself to be pressed down into the bedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from a Bertolt Brecht quote: "The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars."


	3. so in the sunlight, so in the shade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 - Summer in Ios  
> Nicaise lives AU  
> TW for implied past child abuse and child prostitution (nothing worse than canon)

Ever since the day he stumbled into the great hall at Marlas, fourteen, filthy and road-weary, with sapphires twinkling in his ear, Nicaise has been part of the royal courts, traveling between Vere and Akielos and the center, in the heart of the budding Artesian Empire. 

They spend spring and Laurent’s birthday at Arles, the height of summer in the joint seat at Marlas, making landfall in Ios when the weather cools with the first stirrings of autumn, just to leave again when the snows starts to melt.

And so it goes. And so it goes.

But when he turns seventeen, Nicaise is left behind.

(He knows, logically, that Laurent has not actually abandoned him. And that he means well. 

“It is an honor”, he said, when he and Damianos told Nicaise that he would be left in Ios. To be fostered, along with a pack of Akielon youths, in Nikandros’ hall.  
It still smarts.)

The first few months of his fostering are a nightmare. 

Not the worst of his life, because he is fed, and he is not expect to spread his legs in exchange.

Some mornings, he wakes to find his clothes gone, raked through the mud in the streets outside of the palace. His waterskin is filled with seawater, his soup spilt, he his spit on and pelted with pebbles when he goes through his forms.

He complains of this to Nikandros, but the Kyros just spreads his hands. “It would be worse, in the end, if I punished them. Such roughhousing is to be expected. It will stop once you learn to pull your own weight.” 

Nicaise very nearly punches him in the face. But he has not survived Arles without cleverness, without knowing to keep his temper in check. So he just inclines his head, smiles charmingly. “Of course.”

He does not expect any more help from that front. And, indeed, he does not get it. As spring blooms into summer, the abuse starts getting steadily worse. So much that he starts taking his meals and sleeping in hidden nooks and crannies in the servants’ quarters. Most of them were slaves before becoming servants, and they give him sympathetic smiles and understanding glances when he comes begging for asylum. 

Former whores must stick together, he supposes.

In the hottest months of summer, he takes to sitting on top of the white cliffs of Ios. His once pale, unblemished skin peels and burns and tans. He expects he will be covered in freckles come winter, and the thought brings a smile to his face. 

On a bright mid-summer morning he is lying down in the grass, looking up at the cloudless blue sky, when he hears someone calling his name. His actual name, not sweetheart, or darling, or blue-eyes, or, if they’re feeling particularly vicious, catamite (one day, he will find out who spread that particular rumor, and he will make them bleed).

Nevertheless, he has learned to be cautious. He gets up and starts shifting his weight from one foot to another, anticipating a fight.

It is one of the few girls. Nicaise does not know her name, but he has seen her fight, in the practice ring. She is neither the strongest, nor the fastest of Nikandros’ hall, and she is certainly not the best. But she is vicious, and ruthless, and he has seen her break bones. “Your stance is abysmal”, she says.

He knows this, thank you very much. He oh so dearly wishes they would stop beating him up for it. 

He tightens his fists, shifts the balls of his feet to improve his balance. 

The girl nods. “Better. Stop moving around so much. It just tires you.”

Nicaise, bewildered, does.

She nods again, gives him a hint of a smile. “You’re a fast learner, at least. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”  

“Do we?” he asks, taking care to keep his voice cool and careless. 

She frowns. “I’m Leda. Kyros Nikandros told you to expect me, didn’t he?” 

Must have slipped his mind. But Nicaise smiles, slow and easy. “Of course he did.”

Her frown deepens. “Good. Let us go, then. I know a place in the shade, where we won’t be disturbed.”

Nicaise shrugs his shoulders, the very picture of the disaffected courtier. It this turns out to be some kind of elaborate prank, he has a knife stashed beneath his chiton. It’s strictly against the rules, but what’s the worst they can do to him? Send him back to Laurent? 

Please, let them send him back to Laurent. 

She leads him to a copse of olive trees, cool and so dark after the over-bright midsummer sunlight that Nicaise is temporarily blinded. He keeps himself tense, waiting for his eyes to adjust, braced for attack because he knows that if Leda means him ill, this is her best chance. They don't half fancy letting him hit them back.

The place is beautiful in its own simple, unassuming way, he notices once he has grown used to the shade. The leaves are bright, and stirring softly in the breeze, the trunks thick and curved. 

Leda leans her back against the bark, smiling. “Start from the fighting stance. Then go through all your forms, from the beginning. You’ll knock your first opponent in the dirt before the month is out, or you can cover me in feathers and call me a fucking swan.”

Nicaise finds himself grinning. “I’ll hold you to that”, he says, and shifts into his stance.    



End file.
